Process Change: Switch the STARs submission process from a web form to a Zendesk App

GitLab Support: Process Change Rollout Plan

Switch the STARs submission process from a web form to a Zendesk App

The Story

Support has provided a web form for the Field Team to use in “putting a STAR on a ticket”, and it’s been in use for many months now. However, the form lacks the ability to validate its data, making it difficult for submitters to know whether they’ve filled it out correctly and resulting in Support receiving many incorrect STARs. The end result is frustration for the Field Team, the Support Team, and our customers.

Optimizing for efficiency and user experience, Support will switch from the current manual process to a Zendesk App. The app will validate various conditions and input items before accepting and delivering the STAR. The Zendesk app has been available for over 3 months now. During that time 25% of the STARs were created by people using the new Zendesk App, and we’ve received only positive feedback about their experiences.

Related Issues and MRs

• Issue: Deprecate STAR HTML form in favor of Zendesk app
• Issue: Automatically refuse L&R STARs that are submitted too far in advance of SLA expiration
• Issue: Field Announcement Request: Changes on Support STAR Form
• MR: Additional information on the ZD App
• MR: STAR page: Changing instructions to using ZD app

The Roles

Role	Description
Champions	@ralfaro and @mdunninger
Users	The GitLab Field Team, Support Engineers, Support Managers
Impacted Non-Users	Customers, via a more efficient STARs flow

Schedule

We are planning a preparation phase followed by two iterations of change:

Preparation Phase - 2023-March-24 through 2023-March-31

• Communicate this change to all Users as defined in the table above
• Receive and respond to questions, suggestions and concerns from Users
• Field Team ACTION: Field Team members submit Zendesk 'light agent' License requests

Iteration 1 - 2023-April-01

• Decommission the web form, making the Zendesk App the sole channel for STARring a ticket
• The app will include only the following validations:
  1. Confirm that the submission time is within business hours
  2. Confirm the Gitlab namespace is valid (SaaS and SaaS Account forms only)
  3. Confirm the ticket was created more than 30 minutes ago
  4. Confirm the ticket is using a valid support form (SaaS, SaaS Account, Self-Managed, L&R, Open Partner, Select Partner, Alliance Partner)

Iteration 2 - 2023-May-01

This iteration is under discussion within Support as of 2023-Feb-23.

1. Make the following validation changes:
   1. Confirm the ticket is in the New or Open state
   2. Confirm the ticket has breached SLA for a first response or is within an hour of doing so
2. Augment messaging from the ZD App to explain why a STAR is being disallowed and to remind the submitter of the option to submit an emergency, if appropriate

Training

The information on the GitLab Support - Support Ticket Attention Requests (STARs) page is sufficient.

Success Determination

This is for Iteration 1 only. We will rollout Iteration 2 through a follow-up issue.

• What will success look like?
  • All STARs received will be formatted properly and contain correct (pre-validated) information
  • Few if any complaints will be brought to us regarding failures of, or problems with, the Zendesk App

Action Plan

1. Announce the change and include The Story in the SWIR on 2023-March-02
2. Post a message in the #support_team-chat slack channel (or other support channel as appropriate) announcing the change and pointing to the SWIR announcement on 2023-March-02
3. Other communications channels
   • Ask all Support Managers to discuss this change in their 1-1s, telling The Story, by 2023-March-16
   • Request Field Announcements:
     • One for 2023-March-01 to introduce the change, ask the Field to read this issue, and ask the Field to submit ARs for Zendesk "light agent" licenses before 2023-April-01.
     • Another for 2023-March-29 reminding the Field of the upcoming change
4. Report back on successes and problems by 2023-April-15

Follow-Up Plan

• How will results be captured? By whom and by when?

  All complaints, problems and suggestions will be captured in this issue or, if this issue is too long, in a separate issue created for that purpose.

• What is the plan for considering and making quick improvements?

  If the results indicate a need for a quick improvement, we will open a related issue and address the potential improvement there.

• What is the plan should the change be deemed unsuccessful?

  If we do not meet the success criteria, we will either rollback to the manual form or try a new solution that is able to meet our needs.